Jerome David Salinger
Duke Mu of Chin said to Po Lo: "You are now advanced in years. Is
there any member of your family whom I could employ to look for horses in your
stead?" Po Lo replied: "A good horse can be picked out by its general
build and appearance. But the superlative horse-one that raises no dust and
leaves no tracks-is something evanescent and fleeting, elusive as thin air. The
talents of my sons lie on a lower plane altogether; they can tell a good horse
when they see one, but they cannot tell a superlative horse. I have a friend,
however, one Chiu-fang Kao, a hawker of fuel and vegetables, who in things
appertaining to horses is nowise my inferior. Pray see him."
Duke Mu did so, and subsequently dispatched him on the quest for a steed.
Three months later, he returned with the news that he had found one. "It
is now in Shach'iu" he added. "What kind of a horse is it?"
asked the Duke. "Oh, it is a dun-colored mare," was the reply.
However, someone being sent to fetch it, the animal turned out to be a coal-black
stallion! Much displeased, the Duke sent for Po Lo. "That friend of
yours," he said, "whom I commissioned to look for a horse, has made a
fine mess of it. Why, he cannot even distinguish a beast's color or sex! What
on earth can he know about horses?"
Po Lo heaved a sigh of satisfaction.
"Has he really got as far as that?" he cried. "Ah, then he is
worth ten thousand of me put together. There is no comparison between us. What
Kao keeps in view is the spiritual mechanism. In making sure of the essential,
he forgets the homely details; intent on the inward qualities, he loses sight
of the external. He sees what he wants to see, and not what he does not want to
see. He looks at the things he ought to look at, and neglects those that need
not be looked at. So clever a judge of horses is Kao, that he has it in him to
judge something better than horses."
When the horse arrived, it turned out indeed to be a superlative animal.
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